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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

I bought 10 strawberry plants a few days ago and have been so excited to plant them. Most of you who know me, know that I don't enjoy eating strawberries. I know, I know..."I'm Crazy." Anyway, my family loves them and they are very pretty so I thought they would be our first to be planted in our garden this year.

Some of you may remember that Nolan built me a raised garden bed for my birthday last year! I loved watching our tomatoes and cucumbers grow. This year I plan to have strawberries, tomatoes, and hopefully a red pepper plant!
Karalee loves to play in the dirt, transplanting to various places around the yard. This is what our bed looked like today, before planting.

I went to Starbucks today and asked them for any left-over coffee grounds. They gave me a huge bag. What a treat to get free, organic compost for my garden. Apparently used coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen, something that needs to be added to soil that has already "fed" a plant. It also doesn't compact as much as dirt so it keeps your soil just right for your roots to travel...Did I mention it smelled AMAZING?

After this Espresso layer, I added the top layer of soil, compost, manure, and food. I bought a pre-mixed bag this year. We have a pretty good base, so this saved a lot of time...

Now I can plant my beautiful little plants. This truly does feel therapeutic.

In case you are wondering what cool gardening tools I use, don't be intimidated...

And I am left with a fun little strawberry patch in my garden box. They remind me so much of my grandma's strawberry rows in her garden. I have such fun memories of picking berries in her back yard. Can't wait to see if we get anything this year. I hear we might not... we shall have to wait and see.

I have heard that these grow just great in a pot...so if you don't have a garden, don't let that stop you!